Wheel of Time.

It's hard to believe folks but it’s almost another year down. I heard Jingle Bells in Woolworths the other night and went from being quite puzzled to feeling very festive. Recently, I read a theory that stated as you get older and more time accrues behind you, the time ahead shortens…it’s pretty hard to argue with that.

Whilst it’s premature to write a full reflection of 2023, it is fair to say that the experts got it wrong…again. The market didn’t collapse, despite inflation, rising interest rates, mortgage cliffs and global instability. Over the years I have noticed that good real estate just seems to keep going up in value, the formula of more people and less houses has meant that we really do have a housing issue that isn’t going to be easy to solve.

After a brief sojourn in the wilderness of Tasmania last week, I came back to open houses where many buyers were telling me that the market is going to crash whilst at the same time asking if we have any good properties coming up…and there it is.

The issue is, has, and will always be supply. For the past 3 years the numbers of sales locally have been falling and I don’t see that changing anytime soon. Many people who have elected to ‘wait and see’ have watched on in horror as property prices have kept moving. I’m happy to give myself a speeding ticket here and say that view is slightly simplistic as there are markets within markets but on the lower North Shore the only thing that seems cheap is parking in Clifton Gardens (that’s a joke).

After next week there won't be any new stock coming onto the 2023 market because we have run out of runway. However there are some great off market opportunities (see below) and I’m happy to report that our team has already started listing some great new homes for 2024.

Given that the headline has ‘wheel’ in it I thought it appropriate to say how excited I am to watch Formula 1 in Vegas this Sunday at 5pm!

Until next week,

David Murphy